Right now, all around the world, churches are excitedly preparing for Easter Sunday. Lilies are being arranged, choirs are rehearsing, Passion Plays are being staged, Easter eggs being stuffed and hidden, extra services are being added.

Of all Sundays of the year, the one that still matters most is the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We may have drifted away from a lot of important things, but it’s good to know that the one essential event of our faith still means so much to so many people.

The Other Side of the Celebration

The Easter celebration in the church I pastor isn’t as big as a lot of churches, but we do have to ask able-bodied regular attenders to park on the street and around the corner so our small parking lot can be available for the extra guests. I love the “problems” that come with big celebrations like this.

But I also know that this Easter attendance spike is not universal. There are many Small Churches that prepare for Easter Sunday under a burden that most people are unaware of.

In many Small Churches, Easter Sunday is one of the lowest-attended, most challenging days of the year.

I know this is true because I have first-hand experience with it. In the 25-plus years I’ve been pastoring Small Churches, it’s only been in the last ten or so that our crowds actually started to get bigger on Easter Sunday. For most of my time as a Small Church pastor, they got smaller.

I’ve talked with other Small Church pastors who face it, too. The reason most people don’t know about this reality is because they don’t go around complaining about it. They just deal with. And most deal with it extraordinarily well.

Why is Easter attendance so low in many Small Churches? Is this another “proof” that Small Churches and their leaders don’t have enough faith, prayer, planning or some other essential quality?

The article they used was excerpted from The Grasshopper Myth, Chapter 9 “An Open Letter – To My Fellow Small Church Pastors.” They couldn’t use the entire chapter because of space, so they kept what would fit and made some additional edits to adapt it to the framework of the magazine.

Thankfully, a blog isn’t hampered by the space limitations that the editor of a printed magazine has to contend with.

My Director’s Cut

You know how a movie will sometimes issue a “Director’s Cut” on DVD? It’s usually the original movie, with a few extra scenes that had to be left on the cutting room floor for the theatrical release because of time limitations.

An Open Letter

God has entrusted into our care the most powerful force on earth – the Small Church. That may not feel true for you right now. It may never have felt true for you. Nevertheless it is true.

Let me prove it to you.

There are millions of us around the world. No matter how you tally the numbers, by even the most conservative estimates, more people have voluntarily placed their spiritual lives under our care than under the care of any other group of people on earth.

Over One Billion Served

Look at the raw numbers with me. By all accounts there are two to three billion people who call themselves Christians and attend a church on a regular basis. Let’s go with the lowest of those numbers – two billion people. Of those two billion-plus people, well over half of them voluntarily attend a local congregation of less than 350 people.

Like this:

You know what I mean. Churches spend weeks of time and buckets of money for Easter Sunday services. Flyers go out to the neighborhood, ads runs in the “Easter ghetto” of the local newspaper (ask your parents). We hold extravagant musicals, add extra service times, perform Passion Plays, and give special gifts to first-timers.

It’s not that we shouldn’t celebrate or promote Easter, of course. And if the crowds will be big, by all means add services to accommodate them. But what is it about Easter Sunday that makes many otherwise normal churches act like Walmart shoppers on Black Friday, fighting each other over one-time Easter guests?

This is especially insane when you look at the typical results of all this extra work and expense. The week after Easter, what do most churches see? The same people sitting in the same seats they did the week before Easter.

Our church opted out of Easter Insanity several years ago.

It happened after I’d placed an ad in the local paper. I was quite proud of the graphic design we’d put into it. But when I found our ad in the newspaper, it was right next to the most impressive Easter ad I’d ever seen. Another church in our area took out a half page to tell the community they were doing a very special giveaway on Easter Sunday.

Every first-time guest would get a free iPod Mini.

That’s right. Not just one iPod for one lucky winner of a drawing. An iPod Mini for each guest, pre-loaded with a message from the pastor. This was a large church with a massive budget. They’d get hundreds of guests on Easter. It would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2010, a well-known minister wrote a post about why some churches don’t grow. Lately, it’s been reposted on other websites and passed around a lot.

(UPDATE: In an earlier version of this post, I mentioned the name of the minister in question. I have come to believe that was a poor decision on my part, since it made the post feel more adversarial than I intended. The insult from him was unintentional, after all. If you click on the title below or read through the comments, you’ll see his name. But, by removing his name from this post, I hope to make it more about the content of his post and feel less like an attack on him.)

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The hours are long. Everyone calls with urgent and not-so-urgent needs. And the to-do list never gets done.

Or…not.

The first six months I spent as a lead pastor of a Small Church were among the hardest in my ministry. Not because I was overwhelmed by the workload, but because I was so bored I didn’t know what to do with myself.

What Does An Energy Junkie Do in a Small Church?

I spent several years on the staff of a large, bustling church with multiple ministries and an on-campus K-12 school. There was a hum – a literal, noisy hum – to the place, almost 24/7. It was easy to stay active and motivated, because there was always a new event to prepare for, a last-minute emergency, a staff birthday party… all the normal activities of a large, busy, exciting church.

Then I took my first position as a lead pastor. It was in a small chapel in the woods, bordering a creek. Yep, on a creek. Just like those inspiration-of-the-day photos with sayings like He Leads Me Beside Still Waters.

The church had been through more than 20 pastors in their 35 year history. There had never been more than 100 people in it. (You couldn’t fit more than 100 people in it.) I knew the task would be tough, but I was young, excited, and ready to take it on.

My first few weeks were great. I dug in and spruced up the facility, visited congregation members and labored over my weekly sermons. But in less than a month, the chapel was as clean as it was ever going to get, the 25 church members had all been visited once or twice, and the Sunday sermons were written by Wednesday afternoon.

I sat in my office. My very quiet office. All alone. No noise. No hum. No buzz of activity. And I didn’t know what to do next.